Katherine Ashenburg
The Dirt on Clean: An Unsanitized History (2007)
Author: Katherine Ashenburg
Genre: Nonfiction (History)
Book Summary:
Starting with the "social bathing" of the Greeks and Romans, Ashenburg traces a 2500-year history of the concept of cleanliness in the Western world. From the early Christians' notion that dirt was actually healthy, through the 17th century's conviction that a clean linen shirt removed all filth, all the way to today's antiseptic-crazed Americans, it becomes clear that "clean" is both a relative term and a social construct.
Geographical Setting: Europe and North America
Time Period: 2500 B.C.E. to the present (2007)
Appeal Characteristics:
Ashenburg's social history is written in a very accessible manner, with amusing and shocking historical anecdotes, illustrations, fun facts and quotes, and a tone that is objective but engaged. Human behavior through the ages is examined in such a way that our own foibles can be more easily seen, and the reader is encouraged to take a step back and consider his or her own bathing rituals in a new light.
Read-alikes: If you liked Ashenburg's focus on social history and anecdotal detail, you might like her book on mourning in Western culture, The Mourner's Dance: What We Do When People Die. For another detailed historical account written in a scholarly yet engaging style, this time about the Europeans' relationship with spices, try Jack Turner's Spice: The History of a Temptation. If you really enjoyed rethinking your place in cultural history and looking at illustrations, you might be interested in Ginger Strand's Inventing Niagara: Beauty, Power, and Lies, which examines "the hidden history of America's waterfall." For a similarly enjoyable read that will take you to the eastern side of bathing, try Eric Talmadge's Getting Wet: Adventures in the Japanese Bath, which describes modern Japanese bathing culture. Finally, if you want a different take on the concepts of purity and filth and another aspect of Western culture to think about, look at Laura Kipnis' The Female Thing: Dirt, Sex, Envy, Vulnerability, which examines women's ambivalence between feminism and femininity.
Red Flags: some discussion of cleanliness as it relates to sex
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